We've reached the point of the offseason I can best describe as equal to the finally-oppressive summer heat blanketing Southeastern Michigan on this sticky, likely thunderstorm-y August evening--it's simply uncomfortable at this time of year.

We're a little over a full month away from training camp, which means that GM's aren't in the mood to deal anymore as they can easily tap into their own talent reserves instead of spending money they don't have to fill roster holes that take care of themselves thanks to nine pre-season games' worth of players looking to earn a spot and injuries, but we're far enough away from the prospect tournaments and player (and management) returns from their summer homes that we have a good three weeks to fill with impatient, fidgety waiting. The fidgeting's better than having those thunderstorms of controversy trail your team around, but for Red Wings fans, that means a few weeks' worth of "odds and ends," starting here:

Ratings, take 2: Hockey's Future's Ian Altenbaugh posted HF's list of the 15 most likely players to win the Calder Trophy this upcoming season, and Red Wings prospect Ville Leino cracked the non-ranked lineup as he's still young enough (at 25) to qualify for the award;

List-making, take 3: Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom managed to post 59 points in a 78-game season while battling through tendinitis in his right elbow which eventually resulted in a torn tendon and a treatment-induced All-Star Game-skipping suspension, but Rotoworld.com's Ryan Dadoun seems to have tossed that information in the hamper while suggesting that age might be catching up with Lidstrom, ranking him as the 10th-worst performing fantasy hockey player of the 08-09 season:

August 9, Rotoworld.com: 0) Nicklas Lidstrom - We also find it strange that he is on this list, but the six-time Norris Trophy winner had 70 points, including 10 goals at age 37. The extra year in age should bring his offensive stats down to about 60 points but you can still rely on a very good plus/minus from the stellar blueliner.

Lidstrom's age is finally starting to catch up to him. He scored 16 goals and 59 points in 78 games last season with a plus-31 plus/minus rating. That would be considered an incredible season for any other defenseman, but for Lidstrom it's an indication of his decline. He should still be one of the top offensive defensemen next season, but his numbers will probably drop off a little bit more as he approaches the age of 40.

For the record, the Simcoe Mirror reports that Grand Rapids Griffins forward Ryan Oulahen will take part in a charity hockey game in Midland, Ontario on August 20th;

For the record, #2 (there's a theme here!): The Red Wings officially posted the details of their travel arrangement with Premiere Global Sports for the NHL Premiere 2009-2010 games in Stockholm against the St. Louis Blues. DetroitRedWings.com's Todd Beam reports that the pre-packaged $$2,245 and $3,345 tours include:

As a Jiri Hudler footnote, Sport-Express's Vladimir Yurin reports that one of the players mentioned in the KHL-NHL tussle, CSKA Moscow's Sergei Shirokov, chose to decline re-signing with CSKA, and, unlike Denis Parshin, who will remain in Moscow for 3 more years, Shirokov has been suspended by the KHL for one year while he heads to Vancouver to try and make the Canucks' roster;

And Sports Illustrated's Darren Eliot brings our numerically-oriented meander to a close by suggesting that it's uncertainty about the 2010-2011 season's salary cap, not the inherent nature of the salary cap, which has led to the astonishing regularity with which free agents, Jason Williams and Patrick Eaves among them, have signed one-year contracts:

August 10, Sports Illustrated: The journeyman on the move is a burgeoning component of the Three-Card Monty that is roster-building for teams as they seek to strike a balance between their committed core, their emerging youngsters and plugging dangerous holes. Without the ability to use bonuses and option years as a bridge, as was the norm in years gone by, short-term signings seem all the rage.

That was my impression in tracking the new rash of one-year deals. In talking to different capologists around the league, though, their take was less trend-related. Many of the one-year awards had to do with arbitration settlements. The exceptions were the most notorious cases thus far, involving the New York Rangers and Nik Zherdev, and the Detroit Red Wings and Jiri Hudler. The Rangers walked away from the judge's $3.9 million determination and made Zherdev a free agent. Hudler's two-year, $5.75 million award was an exercise in protocol, as he went ahead and signed with the KHL.

The guys I spoke with who craft contracts for a living also cited players being a year away from outright unrestricted free agency as another reason a one-year deal based on qualifying offers. Add in veteran deals like the one-year pacts agreed to by Brendan Shanahan in New Jersey ($1 million), Mark Recchi in Pittsburgh ($1 million), and Keith Tkachuk in St. Louis ($2.15 million) and the point is valid that it isn't just economics at play with those 64 single-season summer inkings to date.

Still, I find the volatility and mechanics behind the movement interesting. Over the course of the offseason, I've chatted with numerous players who are caught in the numbers game. Their agents keep them abreast of interest shown by various teams while trying to match contract hopes with the best possible option from a playing standpoint. For every Travis Moen who cashes in with both take home pay ($1.5 million per annum) and term (three years), there is a Scott Nichol ($750,000), Cody McCormick ($522,500), Patrick Eaves ($500,000) or Jason Williams ($1.5 million) landing a single-season deal at a bargain rate. This is the second summer in succession that Williams has signed with a team for one year. Like the others, he is mainly looking for a place to play.

Truly, the quest for cost certainty has led to more uncertainty for a host of players who are looked upon to fill specific roles, or who provide organizational depth. To that end, I've heard the term two-way contract -- where a player earns vastly different amounts whether he plays in the NHL or the AHL -- bandied about more this summer than in recent memory.

For these players and their agents, knowing the depth chart of any interested team is vital. One defenseman I talked to had several teams interested, but all were offering only a two-way contract. He had been buried on the depth chart with his current organization, so a fresh start seemed reasonable, even if it meant the possibility of going back to the AHL. When his current team came with a two-year deal, with the second season as a one-way, staying and battling seemed the prudent thing to do.

The deal might not have bucked a trend per se, but it felt a whole lot better to the player than any of the single-season look-see offers that came his way. And there were plenty of those on the table this summer. The way the economic breezes are blowing, it appears that such deals will be a fixture of summer for the forseeable future.

Ken Holland and Gary Bettman alike have suggested that the cap system would lead to castes of "haves," who receive multi-year deals as part of teams' 5-to-7-player cores, "don't have yet's" in a constant stream of young players on entry-level contracts, and the "have-nots" in the players who would fill the holes in between. If you're not a core player or a young player in today's NHL, it's becoming more and more likely that you're going to work off a one-year contract, quite possibly with a two-way pay scale.

And here's one more number to toss at you: Former Red Wings netminder Dominik Hasek and HC Eaton Pardubice lost 3-2 to Slavia Praha (Prague) in a Czech league exhibition game, evening Hasek's record at 1-1.